Party-list System: Quo Vadis?

THE ISSUE needs some breathing space, much clearing of previously held notions and impressions. At the heart of the misunderstanding is the impression, mine included and also held by many, that the framers of the 1987 Constitution were incorporating the Party-list System into our electoral process primarily to benefit “the poor and marginalized.” This referred to communities which at the time were called basic sectors: labor, peasant, urban poor, indigenous cultural communities, women and youth. The discourse of the period understood that such communities were under-represented, suffered injustice, and had no one to speak for their interests in Congress.